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- Requirements
- Semester credit hours shall be assigned to academic work and awarded to students for completion of academic work in compliance with Federal and State definitions of the credit hour and in accordance with commonly accepted practice in higher education.
- As appropriate and feasible, term and course scheduling of class time should align to the units of time referenced in Federal and State definitions as the approximate equivalent of the credit hour to facilitate compliance.
- Scheduling of class time for online courses shall be simulated through voice-over lectures, discussion activities, virtual office hours, and other tools commensurate with this approximate equivalent.
- Where alignment of term and course scheduling of class time to this approximate equivalent is not appropriate or feasible, an institutionally established equivalency for semester credit hours to be assigned and awarded shall be determined based on a verifiable rationale and/or methodology.
- Responsibilities
- Semester credit hour assignment occurs through the curriculum process overseen by the University Senate Curriculum Committee. New courses and associated semester credit hour assignments as well as changes to existing credit hour assignments are reviewed and approved by the appropriate College Curriculum Committee, Chair of the University Senate Curriculum Committee, and the Office of the Provost.
- Semester credit hours assigned to courses are entered in the Banner system by the University Registrar.
- Scheduling of all classes in the Banner system, including data entry, data validation, and auditing of data, is performed by the Office of Academic Scheduling.
- Schedules for traditional full semester classes are provided by the academic departments using the Contact Hour Grid. The Contact Hour Grid conforms to the provisions of the University Academic Calendar policy and to State and Federal definitions of the credit hour with respect to instructional time.
- Schedules for online classes, winter session classes, summer session classes, and extension classes are provided by Rowan Global and are constructed to ensure delivery of the same instructional hours per semester credit hour as a full semester class.
- For accelerated face-to-face courses, the equivalent amount of instructional time per credit is scheduled within the course duration.
- For online courses, the Rowan Online Instructional Designer facilitates the management and incorporation of simulated class time.
- In certain cases such as independent study, studio work, laboratory and clinical practice, experiential learning, study abroad, and thesis/dissertation projects, assigned semester credit hours may not align to scheduled class time. These and other such variances shall be approved by the appropriate Dean and/or Department Chair/Head based on a verifiable rationale and/or methodology, which may include evaluation of course equivalency in accordance with the transfer credit policy; review and endorsement by a programmatic accreditor; use of a commonly accepted approximation; or definition of a measure of student learning in terms of outcomes, products, performance or other means of verifying achievement of academic objectives represented by the semester credit hour.
VI. ATTACHMENTS